Agent Spotlight: Kerry Sparks

About: “Kerry Sparks grew up in a rainy, rural Oregon town. After spending her formative years building tree forts, swimming in the river, and navigating life as a middle child, she made the move to Southern California for some sunshine. During her six years in Los Angeles, Kerry produced a play, published a short story, graduated college with honors, worked in various facets of the film industry, and ate a lot of delicious food.

“In addition to her passion for words, Kerry has a love for film, road trips, running, and bubble tea. Although she enjoys the luxuries of gargantuan cities she has lived in, Kerry has yet to find a bookstore as impressive as Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon.” (Link)

“Kerry loves to be transported and surprised when reading both fiction and nonfiction. She is looking for great YA and middle-grade fiction, both commercial and literary, with a fresh voice and compelling story (although she tends to shy away from the paranormal) and enjoys the occasional picture book. In non-fiction, Kerry is most drawn to health and lifestyle books with a prescriptive focus.” (Link)

From her SCBWI Bio:

“Kerry Sparks is actively looking for YA fiction, middle grade fiction, and picture books, but is also interested in finding great non-fiction for a young audience. She enjoys working on stories that are often simple but have complex characters. She is particularly interested in picture books with a fresh voice, literary YA, narratives with a cinematic element, YA/Adult crossover, and slightly-edgy middle grade. She tends to shy away from paranormal, although if the story grabs her, she’s in!” (Link)

From Conference Notes (11/2010):

“Kerry represents PBs, MG, and YA and is particularly interested in finding romantic YA, school stories, quirky MG, and narratives with a cinematic element. She tends to shy away from werewolves and zombies, but will read anything with a strong voice and compelling characters.” (Link)

What She Isn't Looking For:

Adult fiction, screenplays.

About the Agency:

"Founded in 1989 by author and academic entrepreneur James Levine, we have grown into a firm of thirteen people with offices in New York and San Francisco. We work in every category of fiction and non-fiction.

"We represent people, not just individual projects; more than selling books, we work as our clients' creative and business partners throughout the entire publishing process. Our goal is to develop and guide talent to its fullest expression across a variety of media-books, film and television, audio, and electronic formats.

"Most of our titles are published by imprints of the major houses-Random House, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Penguin Group, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan, etc-but we have also done business with almost fifty independent and/or university presses.

"Our strong foreign rights department works internationally with a respected network of co-agents to place our titles with leading foreign publishers, and we are regular participants at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the London Book Fair, and Book Expo America." (Link)

As of this posting, Ms. Sparks is listed on Publisher’s Marketplace as having made 2 deals in the last 12 months and 2 overall (with another 2 deals under her maiden name, Kerry Evans). Recent deals include 2 young adult, 1 middle grade, and 1 picture book.

The agency only responds if interested, usually within three seeks. Ms. Spark’s response time on requested material seems to be within a week to a month.

What's the Buzz?

Kerry Sparks is a relatively new agent who deserves some notice. She’s been an agent with Levine Greenberg (recommended on P&E) since 2008, has already made a good handful of sales, and is actively looking for clients and building up the agency’s children’s list. Her clients seem very pleased so far.

Have any experience with this agent? See something that needs updating? Please leave a comment or e-mail me at agentspotlight(at)gmail(dot)com

Note: These agent profiles presently focus on agents who accept children's fiction. They are not interviews. Please take the time to verify anything you might use here before querying an agent. The information found herein is subject to change.

Hi Casey - just came across your blog via a link from Shannon Messenger's blog. And - wow! In-depth agent info is totally what I'm looking for! Can't wait to dig more into your blog for some great info. Thank you! :)

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